Blackstone spins off Park Hill

The Blackstone Group will spin off three businesses including advisory services, restructuring and its placement agent business Park Hill, according to a statement.

All three businesses will be combined with PJT Partners, a financial advisory firm founded by former Morgan Stanley executive Paul Taubman.

The result will be a publicly traded company led by Taubman. Blackstone unitholders will have a 65 percent stake in the company and Blackstone’s advisory employees will roll their Blackstone units into the new company. Employees including Taubman and four partners will own the other 35 percent.

“As the largest alternative asset manager in the world, and with our investing areas considerably broader and larger than even a few years ago, we have not been free to aggressively grow our advisory businesses further out of concern for potential conflicts,” said Blackstone co-founder and chief executive officer Stephen Schwarzman. “The separation of our investing and advisory areas will create new growth opportunities for both businesses.”

The transaction is expected to close in 2015.

Earlier this year Park Hill advised on the restructuring process of Diamond Castle Holdings’ Fund IV and last year the firm was hired to work on restructuring JW Childs’ Fund III. Its secondaries advisory business is led by co-founder and senior managing director Lawrence Thuet, who was unavailable to comment by press time.